History and Importance of Procedural Medicine

Dr. Ault, considered a pioneer in procedural medicine, often used chickens as teaching tools in his courses. Over the past 30 years, the number of procedures performed by internists has steadily declined.1 Concordantly, the requirement to complete a minimum number of procedures during residency for board certification by the American Board of Internal Medicine was removed in 2007. As interest in performing procedures declined among internists and increased among other specialties, procedural medicine evolved into a profession all its own. Hospitalists have been at the forefront of this shift, developing medical procedure services (MPS) across the country.  It’s difficult to say exactly when MPS first came into existence, but Mark J. Ault, MD, who passed away earlier this year, co-founded Cedars-Sinai’s Outpatient Procedure Center in 1989. Dr. Ault is considered a true pioneer in the field. Hospitalist procedure services started springing up in teaching hospitals in the early 2000s,2 just a few years after the term “hospitalist” was coined in a 1996 New England Journal of Medicine article.3  MPS include physicians and advanced practice professionals who’ve chosen to dedicate a significant amount of their clinical time to performing invasive procedures such as paracentesis, vascular access, and thoracentesis. In teaching hospitals, proceduralists further play an important role in training students and residents. The structure of MPS varies by institution, but its ...
Source: The Hospitalist - Category: Hospital Management Authors: Tags: Education Hospital Medicine Practice Management Source Type: research